Mining real Bitcoin is increasingly out of reach for the average person, with the industry dominated by massive firms running warehouses full of super-powered computers. But there’s a popular iOS and Android game that turns the act into an amusing diversion—and pays you small bits of real Bitcoin just for tapping your phone screen.

Bitcoin Miner is a simple game that lets you fake-mine an array of popular cryptocurrencies, including BTC, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and Solana—and rack up real satoshis, aka the smallest denomination of Bitcoin, all the while. And yes, you can withdraw the Bitcoin to a wallet and really spend it as you please. It’s real Bitcoin!

Granted, the amount of crypto you’ll earn is typically miniscule, but that’s true of all of these free-to-play crypto games. But it’s a nice bonus for a game that has attracted millions of players and continues to grow and expand. Here’s how to get started with Bitcoin Miner.

What is Bitcoin Miner?

Bitcoin Miner is a free-to-play iOS and Android game from Fumb Games. It’s an idle tapping game that tasks you with building an elite mining operation spanning multiple cryptocurrencies and locations, all presented in vibrant, retro-style pixel art with a chiptune soundtrack.

Fumb originally launched the game without real Bitcoin rewards. As co-founder Paul West told Decrypt’s GG, the game got almost zero traction at first.

“Nothing happened. Like, literally nothing happened at all,” he recalled, saying that the game only racked up hundreds of downloads in the first couple years.

It was only after Fumb teamed up with Bitcoin payments startup Zebedee—and integrated its Lightning Network technology to enable BTC micropayments—that the game started taking off. Now it has racked up millions of downloads and is seeing its daily user count steadily rise.

How to play Bitcoin Miner

Bitcoin Miner is a “clicker” or “tapper” game, similar to older games like Cookie Clicker and the recent crop of Telegram crypto games like Notcoin and Hamster Kombat. When you tap a button at the bottom of the screen, you earn in-game coins for “mining cryptocurrencies.” Again, no, you’re not really mining crypto. It's a video game—a simulation, if you will.

But there’s more to it than that. As you rack up coins, you can unlock new cryptocurrencies to fake-mine with your growing operation. You can also upgrade your rig for each coin to super-charge your in-game earnings, invest in developmental upgrades, assign managers and extra boosts, and more.

That’s all handled through menu screens, and it’s all pretty easy to understand. Be sure to check out our Bitcoin Miner guide with several tips to help you make the most of the game’s various boosts, which will let you earn not only more in-game coins but also more real Bitcoin.

How much can you earn?

It’s small fries. We’ve played hours and hours of Bitcoin Miner over the span of several months, and at best you’re likely to earn pennies’ worth of BTC each hour you put into the game. We shared more about our earning experience in this write-up, though your experience may vary based on how actively you play and how much you use the various boosts.

Bitcoin Miner doesn’t offer a serious earning opportunity, but steady users can potentially rack up hundreds of satoshis—each worth 1/100,000,000 Bitcoin—per day.

And cashing out is easy: Just tap the button with the orange icon at the top of the screen, connect your Zebedee wallet, and hit Redeem. Bitcoin Miner lets you redeem up to 500 satoshis per day, though you can pile up more in the game and then just withdraw them in batches. From your Zebedee wallet, you can then send to other wallets or cash out as desired.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa